There are none so blind as those who won't see. Albo is one of them. He is a Commo at heart and maybe the Australian public are the blind ones who refuse to see what sort of a man he is. A very good article, thank you
We don't have a military alliance. The terms of the AUKUS deal only require the USA to consider its options if we are attacked. In the meantime we are to be involved in all US wars of choice.
It's a vassalage agreement, pure and simple. We should withdraw unilaterally, today. Yesterday, if possible.
The US is vastly more aggressive toward China than China is toward the US, that's just a fact. It's time to draw down the sabre rattling and (ironically) adopt the foreign policy suggested by almost all founders of the United States: "peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none" - Thomas Jefferson
"Albo agrees with Shoebridge here. He thinks the key to containing China is friendly engagement, not military escalation. "
How exactly do you see this military escalation ending? After what we did to Russia following the Cold War no power will ever go down that route again. China has the ability (like all modern nuclear armed states) to obliterate most of the world, certainly every major city in the Anglosphere. It's just a button press away.
We aren't going to contain China. We are going to contain ourselves.
"Albo, who has his own secret ambitions for Australia and is no slouch when it comes to communist-style censorship and state control of the means of production, has more in common with Xi Jinping than he does with Donald Trump."
The irony of this is that the US and China are converging on a common political system. One characterized by mass surveillance, AI enforced laws, digital ID, CBDCs, etc.
At the same time the US is becoming more tyrannical, China is becoming less so. Both have realized for their respective reasons that the sweet spot of governance lies somewhere in between. Xi is a vastly less evil leader than Mao. Orders of magnitude so.
"At a time when peace is increasingly unlikely, our alliance with the United States has never been on shakier ground."
It's increasingly unlikely due to the anti-American actions of the United States. Only one country has dozens of bases just miles off the other's coastline. Only one country has orchestrated 28 wars of choice since the other's last war. Only one country asserts its warships are doing freedom of navigation operations in international waters while denying the other the same right. Only one country has threatened to invade the ICC if it issues warrants against its leaders for war crimes. The US doesn't even formally recognize the independence of Taiwan yet it wants to go to nuclear war over it?
I have no love for China, I despise their system, yet they don't force it on us like the US does. The US has lost its way, its founders would not recognize it anymore. They would likely rise up in revolution against it.
It's time for the US to fix some of its own problems before it gallivants around the world telling other nations how to run their own countries. It's time for Australia to pursue a foreign policy which is not subservient to foreign powers, this was our mistake in the past and we are repeating it thoughtlessly.
What this is really all about is exaggerating a foreign threat so our populations don't look at our historically unpopular leaders too closely. Nothing helps an unpopular leader as much as a foreign threat.
Thanks for this thoughtful comment. I'm with you on the point that one can't blindly ally with the US. The CIA and FBI have been sinister, pernicious forces for decades. I'm not convinced even they are as bad as the CCP, though. Also, ANZUS is still current, so we do have a military alliance with the US. Without this, I suspect China would invade Australia tomorrow, which it could do with a legion of 14-year-old maths prodigies if it wanted to spare its actual military the trouble.
The primary constraint on great powers is the ability of other great powers to flip the chessboard: the US, Russia, and China all have the ability to destroy the world many times over.
Israel, India, Pakistan, France and the UK each have the ability to comprehensively destroy at least one great power and kill hundreds of millions (for instance, China or the USA). North Korea is a wildcard, it's not certain they'd be able to effectively deploy their weapons.
This dynamic is what prevents a power like China from invading a country like Australia. It's the reason there isn't a WWII style war on the ground in Ukraine with American and European troops right now.
I am on the record as wanting to substantially replace the ADF with nuclear weapons. This is a controversial position but I hold it for anti-war reasons: countries with nukes simply do no get invaded. They might face proxy threats from other great powers, but there won't be any invasion proper. This would even make our submarines useful!
As for China invading Australia, I'm not as certain of this outcome. For one, China's history is not as an aggressive, expansionist power. It's one of internal strife and civil war. They have shown no indication of changing this. Taiwan is objectively their most likely target, and Taiwan is a complicated case, certainly not a clear cut case of imperialism.
The South China Sea dispute is overstated. For one, Taiwan's claims exactly match Beijing's, something which is rarely acknowledged. Also, almost every party in the dispute (other than Bhutan and the Philippines, if memory serves) has either joined BRICS or is an observer. You don't tend to join the trade blocs of countries you are expecting a military confrontation with. We use the South China Sea to wedge disagreement between China and the other claimants, and the days of this are probably coming to an end.
Finally, China is a rising power. They don't need to conquer other countries, they just need to sit back, not rock the boat too much, and they will dominate the world organically through soft and economic power. Why risk everything on some hair-brained scheme to conquer a vast and unforgiving landscape (Australia)? Because they feel they aren't getting the right price on iron ore?
There are other countries with plenty of iron ore. Granted, we are number one, but Brazil has more than half our usable reserves. India has a quarter. China themselves have a quarter. Russia, Iran and South Africa follow closely behind. What all of these countries have in common (other than us) is that they are on good terms with China and are in the BRICS trade bloc. Some of these countries were very anti-China not too long ago, such as Russia. We have pushed them all together.
What this demonstrates is a willingness to use diplomacy to grease the wheels of trade.
The threat I see is that both the West and China will whip up nationalist fervor within their populations to prevent them from looking at their own leaders. Something Orwell warned of repeatedly. That the US and China will converge on a political position which is technocratic and authoritarian, but stable and largely non-violent (internally at least).
The technology of the 21st century makes this possible. Both blocs are making moves in this direction. Keep the eyes off Albo and Dutton, keep them on Beijing. Keep them off the disinformation bill, off digital ID, off CBDCs, off the growing Great Firewall of Australia, off basically all the measures we are implementing which make us different from China in degree and language only, measures which ironically were pioneered in China. We are at war with Eastasia. We have always been at war with Eastasia.
There are none so blind as those who won't see. Albo is one of them. He is a Commo at heart and maybe the Australian public are the blind ones who refuse to see what sort of a man he is. A very good article, thank you
We don't have a military alliance. The terms of the AUKUS deal only require the USA to consider its options if we are attacked. In the meantime we are to be involved in all US wars of choice.
It's a vassalage agreement, pure and simple. We should withdraw unilaterally, today. Yesterday, if possible.
The US is vastly more aggressive toward China than China is toward the US, that's just a fact. It's time to draw down the sabre rattling and (ironically) adopt the foreign policy suggested by almost all founders of the United States: "peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none" - Thomas Jefferson
"Albo agrees with Shoebridge here. He thinks the key to containing China is friendly engagement, not military escalation. "
How exactly do you see this military escalation ending? After what we did to Russia following the Cold War no power will ever go down that route again. China has the ability (like all modern nuclear armed states) to obliterate most of the world, certainly every major city in the Anglosphere. It's just a button press away.
We aren't going to contain China. We are going to contain ourselves.
____________________________________________________________________________
"Albo, who has his own secret ambitions for Australia and is no slouch when it comes to communist-style censorship and state control of the means of production, has more in common with Xi Jinping than he does with Donald Trump."
The irony of this is that the US and China are converging on a common political system. One characterized by mass surveillance, AI enforced laws, digital ID, CBDCs, etc.
At the same time the US is becoming more tyrannical, China is becoming less so. Both have realized for their respective reasons that the sweet spot of governance lies somewhere in between. Xi is a vastly less evil leader than Mao. Orders of magnitude so.
For more on this I recommend the following: https://theupheaval.substack.com/p/the-china-convergence
"At a time when peace is increasingly unlikely, our alliance with the United States has never been on shakier ground."
It's increasingly unlikely due to the anti-American actions of the United States. Only one country has dozens of bases just miles off the other's coastline. Only one country has orchestrated 28 wars of choice since the other's last war. Only one country asserts its warships are doing freedom of navigation operations in international waters while denying the other the same right. Only one country has threatened to invade the ICC if it issues warrants against its leaders for war crimes. The US doesn't even formally recognize the independence of Taiwan yet it wants to go to nuclear war over it?
I have no love for China, I despise their system, yet they don't force it on us like the US does. The US has lost its way, its founders would not recognize it anymore. They would likely rise up in revolution against it.
It's time for the US to fix some of its own problems before it gallivants around the world telling other nations how to run their own countries. It's time for Australia to pursue a foreign policy which is not subservient to foreign powers, this was our mistake in the past and we are repeating it thoughtlessly.
What this is really all about is exaggerating a foreign threat so our populations don't look at our historically unpopular leaders too closely. Nothing helps an unpopular leader as much as a foreign threat.
JC,
Thanks for this thoughtful comment. I'm with you on the point that one can't blindly ally with the US. The CIA and FBI have been sinister, pernicious forces for decades. I'm not convinced even they are as bad as the CCP, though. Also, ANZUS is still current, so we do have a military alliance with the US. Without this, I suspect China would invade Australia tomorrow, which it could do with a legion of 14-year-old maths prodigies if it wanted to spare its actual military the trouble.
Thanks for your thoughtful response :)
It's a complicated world out there. Not everything is always as it seems.
I am glad we seem to agree on the US deep state. Malcolm Fraser wrote a book on its dangers, something which if you remember Fraser you might find surprising: https://www.amazon.com.au/Dangerous-Allies-Malcolm-Fraser-Roberts/dp/0522862659
The primary constraint on great powers is the ability of other great powers to flip the chessboard: the US, Russia, and China all have the ability to destroy the world many times over.
Israel, India, Pakistan, France and the UK each have the ability to comprehensively destroy at least one great power and kill hundreds of millions (for instance, China or the USA). North Korea is a wildcard, it's not certain they'd be able to effectively deploy their weapons.
This dynamic is what prevents a power like China from invading a country like Australia. It's the reason there isn't a WWII style war on the ground in Ukraine with American and European troops right now.
I am on the record as wanting to substantially replace the ADF with nuclear weapons. This is a controversial position but I hold it for anti-war reasons: countries with nukes simply do no get invaded. They might face proxy threats from other great powers, but there won't be any invasion proper. This would even make our submarines useful!
_________________________________________________________________________
As for China invading Australia, I'm not as certain of this outcome. For one, China's history is not as an aggressive, expansionist power. It's one of internal strife and civil war. They have shown no indication of changing this. Taiwan is objectively their most likely target, and Taiwan is a complicated case, certainly not a clear cut case of imperialism.
The South China Sea dispute is overstated. For one, Taiwan's claims exactly match Beijing's, something which is rarely acknowledged. Also, almost every party in the dispute (other than Bhutan and the Philippines, if memory serves) has either joined BRICS or is an observer. You don't tend to join the trade blocs of countries you are expecting a military confrontation with. We use the South China Sea to wedge disagreement between China and the other claimants, and the days of this are probably coming to an end.
Finally, China is a rising power. They don't need to conquer other countries, they just need to sit back, not rock the boat too much, and they will dominate the world organically through soft and economic power. Why risk everything on some hair-brained scheme to conquer a vast and unforgiving landscape (Australia)? Because they feel they aren't getting the right price on iron ore?
There are other countries with plenty of iron ore. Granted, we are number one, but Brazil has more than half our usable reserves. India has a quarter. China themselves have a quarter. Russia, Iran and South Africa follow closely behind. What all of these countries have in common (other than us) is that they are on good terms with China and are in the BRICS trade bloc. Some of these countries were very anti-China not too long ago, such as Russia. We have pushed them all together.
What this demonstrates is a willingness to use diplomacy to grease the wheels of trade.
___________________________________________________________________________
The threat I see is that both the West and China will whip up nationalist fervor within their populations to prevent them from looking at their own leaders. Something Orwell warned of repeatedly. That the US and China will converge on a political position which is technocratic and authoritarian, but stable and largely non-violent (internally at least).
The technology of the 21st century makes this possible. Both blocs are making moves in this direction. Keep the eyes off Albo and Dutton, keep them on Beijing. Keep them off the disinformation bill, off digital ID, off CBDCs, off the growing Great Firewall of Australia, off basically all the measures we are implementing which make us different from China in degree and language only, measures which ironically were pioneered in China. We are at war with Eastasia. We have always been at war with Eastasia.
‘The US is vastly more aggressive toward China than China is toward the US, that's just a fact’
What do you mean?
Soooon! A Trotskyist Workers Paradise 👏🧟